Best use of subdomains

Forums › IT Pro and developers › Best use of subdomains

turb

881 posts

Ultimate Geek

#245261 26-Jan-2019 12:18

I have a domain with a very generic name similar to blahblah.net, hosted by an NZ company.

I have various odd little projects on the boil that need servers, such as a password-protected site for work, a blog, and a web app.

Is there anything wrong with using my free subdomains for these?

Eg blog.blahblah.net, app.blahblah.net, quiz.blahblah.net etc.

Interests: HTPC, Web App authoring.

amanzi

Amanzi
1302 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2167839 26-Jan-2019 12:46

Nothing wrong with that at all - go for it. I do the same thing... I have a wildcard DNS record pointed to my server and I'm constantly using subdomains for various purposes. I also have a wildcard SSL/TLS certificate from Lets Encrypt set up on the same server so I can use the same cert for all the subdomains with very little config change.

sparkz25

750 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#2167930 26-Jan-2019 13:29

amanzi:

Nothing wrong with that at all - go for it. I do the same thing... I have a wildcard DNS record pointed to my server and I'm constantly using subdomains for various purposes. I also have a wildcard SSL/TLS certificate from Lets Encrypt set up on the same server so I can use the same cert for all the subdomains with very little config change.

i have the same setup and it works well

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#2167941 26-Jan-2019 13:43

turb: I have a domain with a very generic name similar to blahblah.net, hosted by an NZ company.

I have various odd little projects on the boil that need servers, such as a password-protected site for work, a blog, and a web app.

Is there anything wrong with using my free subdomains for these?

Eg blog.blahblah.net, app.blahblah.net, quiz.blahblah.net etc.

One thing to think about ...

If you use Apache or similar, and have to set up a new /etc/apache2/sites-available/blahblahblah.conf file for each subdomain, then you have more management.

For example, if you delete one of your folders e.g. /var/www/blah2 and dont kill the .conf file then apache wont restart gracefully...possibly turning off all your sites.

chevrolux

4962 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#2168070 26-Jan-2019 17:06

Yep I do exactly the same. Even for production work applications.

We just have a reverse proxy (running ngnix), all DNS pointing to that, wildcard SSL, and then it just forwards to the internal server running the app.

The nginx config file is pretty bog these days, but still quite easy to manage.

mme

161 posts

Master Geek

#2168225 27-Jan-2019 07:04

Try Caddy it makes it very easy to do this all including tls certs.

wpcharged

18 posts

Geek

#2168394 27-Jan-2019 14:49

Google will see subdomains as a completely new website and won't carry any SEO over from the main domain.

So if SEO is important for those extra apps, such as for your blog, you will get a greater SEO benefit by adding it as a subfolder e.g blahblah.net etc/blog instead of blog.blahblah.net

ANglEAUT

2329 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2168542 27-Jan-2019 17:53

Thx wpcharged. That is very handy info & annoying at the same time.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.